Genre Fiction
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The Hollywood Spy: A Maggie Hope Mystery
Maggie Hope is off to California to solve a crime that hits too close to home-and to confront the very evil she thought she had left behind in Europe-as the acclaimed World War II mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Susan Elia MacNeal continues.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL • "An absolute triumph . . . Maggie Hope is irresistible."-Hilary Davidson, author of Her Last Breath
Los Angeles, 1943. As the Allies beat back the Nazis in the Mediterranean and the United States military slowly closes in on Tokyo, Walt Disney cranks out wartime propaganda and the Cocoanut Grove is alive with jazz and swing every night. But behind this sunny façade lies a darker reality. Up in the lush foothills of Hollywood, a woman floats lifeless in the pool of one of California's trendiest hotels.
When American-born secret agent and British spy Maggie Hope learns that this woman was engaged to her former fiancée, John Sterling, and that he suspects her death was no accident, intuition tells her he's right. Leaving London under siege is a lot to ask-but John was once the love of Maggie's life . . . and she can't say no.
Maggie struggles with seeing her lost love again, but more shocking is the realization that her country is as divided and convulsed with hatred as Europe. The Zoot Suit Riots loom large in Los Angeles, and the Ku Klux Klan casts a long shadow everywhere. But there is little time to dwell on memories once she starts digging into the case. As she traces a web of deception from the infamous Garden of Allah to the iconic Carthay Circle Theater, she discovers things aren't always the way things appear in the movies-and the political situation in America is more complicated, and dangerous, than the newsreels would have them all believe.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL • "An absolute triumph . . . Maggie Hope is irresistible."-Hilary Davidson, author of Her Last Breath
Los Angeles, 1943. As the Allies beat back the Nazis in the Mediterranean and the United States military slowly closes in on Tokyo, Walt Disney cranks out wartime propaganda and the Cocoanut Grove is alive with jazz and swing every night. But behind this sunny façade lies a darker reality. Up in the lush foothills of Hollywood, a woman floats lifeless in the pool of one of California's trendiest hotels.
When American-born secret agent and British spy Maggie Hope learns that this woman was engaged to her former fiancée, John Sterling, and that he suspects her death was no accident, intuition tells her he's right. Leaving London under siege is a lot to ask-but John was once the love of Maggie's life . . . and she can't say no.
Maggie struggles with seeing her lost love again, but more shocking is the realization that her country is as divided and convulsed with hatred as Europe. The Zoot Suit Riots loom large in Los Angeles, and the Ku Klux Klan casts a long shadow everywhere. But there is little time to dwell on memories once she starts digging into the case. As she traces a web of deception from the infamous Garden of Allah to the iconic Carthay Circle Theater, she discovers things aren't always the way things appear in the movies-and the political situation in America is more complicated, and dangerous, than the newsreels would have them all believe.
Editorial Reviews
"Maggie Hope and her adventures continue to be charming and absorbing."-Seattle Times
"The tenth Maggie Hope historical mystery by Susan Elia MacNeal is a particularly distinctive one . . . MacNeal's brisk plotting and efficient dialogue propel a mystery cloaked in some universal truths: History is determined to repeat itself, no front is ever united and Hollywood, despite its glamour and sparkle, is a hall of mirrors."-The New York Times
"Stellar . . . Susan Elia MacNeal expertly braids the glitz and glamour of Hollywood with the chilling reality of the rise of American Nazis and blatant racism . . . Maggie notes that ‘it's the same war, different country,' and, sadly, one we're still fighting."-Arizona Daily Star
"Los Angeles is a cauldron of racism, riots, and the rise of American Nazism. Hope navigates all of it with compassion and valor."-Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"The Hollywood Spy is a swift, vibrant novel that peels back the asbestos curtain on the complex history of Los Angeles, home to heroes and villains, including both homegrown Nazis and run-of-the-mill racists and segregationists during the volatile days of World War II."-Steph Cha, author of Your House Will Pay
"Unbelievable timeliness in this gutsy, brilliant look at 1940s Southern California and its bygone ties to Hitler's regime."-L.A. Chandlar, author of the Art Deco Mystery series
"The Hollywood Spy is a riveting plunge into the tainted paradise of wartime Hollywood, where surface glitter masks a bone-deep decay. This series only gets more complex and satisfying with each new entry."-Francine Mathews, author of The Alibi Club
"Maggie Hope's return to America brings her to Los Angeles, where a starlet's death reveals a battle for the soul of the country. Fans of the buoyant Maggie Hope will relish this sun-drenched excursion."-Lori Rader-Day, author of The Black Hour
"The Hollyw...
"The tenth Maggie Hope historical mystery by Susan Elia MacNeal is a particularly distinctive one . . . MacNeal's brisk plotting and efficient dialogue propel a mystery cloaked in some universal truths: History is determined to repeat itself, no front is ever united and Hollywood, despite its glamour and sparkle, is a hall of mirrors."-The New York Times
"Stellar . . . Susan Elia MacNeal expertly braids the glitz and glamour of Hollywood with the chilling reality of the rise of American Nazis and blatant racism . . . Maggie notes that ‘it's the same war, different country,' and, sadly, one we're still fighting."-Arizona Daily Star
"Los Angeles is a cauldron of racism, riots, and the rise of American Nazism. Hope navigates all of it with compassion and valor."-Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"The Hollywood Spy is a swift, vibrant novel that peels back the asbestos curtain on the complex history of Los Angeles, home to heroes and villains, including both homegrown Nazis and run-of-the-mill racists and segregationists during the volatile days of World War II."-Steph Cha, author of Your House Will Pay
"Unbelievable timeliness in this gutsy, brilliant look at 1940s Southern California and its bygone ties to Hitler's regime."-L.A. Chandlar, author of the Art Deco Mystery series
"The Hollywood Spy is a riveting plunge into the tainted paradise of wartime Hollywood, where surface glitter masks a bone-deep decay. This series only gets more complex and satisfying with each new entry."-Francine Mathews, author of The Alibi Club
"Maggie Hope's return to America brings her to Los Angeles, where a starlet's death reveals a battle for the soul of the country. Fans of the buoyant Maggie Hope will relish this sun-drenched excursion."-Lori Rader-Day, author of The Black Hour
"The Hollyw...
Readers Top Reviews
Helena MarkusMichael
Have written a long review but somehow I managed to delete it by refreshing the page. Won't write again but suffice to say I was really angry with myself for having thrown away the money on this book. I had loved the previous books in the series but...
MBSSheila Marshall
This has been a series with great promise: winning heroine, well-researched, interesting brushes with historical figures. But this latest iteration is just bad. There's only a sliver of a plot and the rest of it is preachy in tone. Don't get me wrong! These are important issues. CRITICAL issues. But that's not why I read books like this to relax at night. Couldn't the author have done more with Sarah's experience with Balanchine? All we get is that Mr B creates the piece on the dancers and it's exhausting? The author has dance chops. She could have done more with this. Sarah has been an interesting character in the past; not this time around. And the ending with Maggie asserting herself? Of course we cheer! But is it realistic? Is it true to the period? The writing is completely without nuance. Good guys and bad guys. Nothing in between -- which is something that characterized the earlier plot lines. I'm sorry to say, but I'm out.
Alex Gardner
Loved this book. Once again, this book stands on its own apart from the Maggie Hope Mystery series, but as someone who has read all previous novels, it is a warm welcome to have another story in a new context with all the same wit, charm, and brilliance that Maggie Hope brings to the world. She is my literary hero! The depth of history and incredible writing that MacNeal offers her readers and world-class. Highly recommend!
Jan
From reading the reviews, I picked up words like preachy, woke, boring which told me a lot about the reviewers but not about the book. Susan Elia MacNeal has always - ALWAYS - based the Maggie Hope stories in gritty, often sad, realities of life during WWII. And, yes, the stories get harder and grittier as the war progresses. From our vantage point here in the 21st century, we know there was an end and we even know when. From the perspective of Maggie and her friends, they are in the thick of a dark period of history with no end in sight. I think each successive book in the series reflects some of this sadness and despair. My parents both served - my father as a pilot in the Army Air Corps, mostly in the South Pacific (brutal, brutal war there) and my mother as a WAVE in Los Angeles and Seattle. It was hard for anyone serving or who had a family member or friend serving, but life was much easier for civilians in the US than it was at any point in the war for those living in England. This book has Maggie taking time away from the grim darkness of wartime in England for the surface brightness and unreality of Southern California. I grew up there. I was born in the early 50s and this book truly took me back. So much of what I read in this book put events and experiences from my own growing up into perfect context. I actually believe that this series should be required reading for history courses that cover WWII and that this book, in particular, is critical for Americans to better understand that the white supremacy we are witnessing today was not born out of thin air. Old California was a completely different place pre-1980 than it is now. MacNeil captures the feel of Old California beautifully. And, sadly, she also captures its dark side. Los Angeles was rife with corruption and racism. I lived through the Watts riots, I had Japanese friends whose parents and grandparents were interned in camps during the war and lost everything. I had many Chicano friends growing up and witnessed the very anti-Hispanic attitude that was present in this book right up into the 70s. The Klan was very present and, eventually, found it’s home in Orange and San Diego counties. Preachy? Woke? No - many foreign visitors were appalled when they encountered the cruelly casual racism of Southern California. In fact, MacNeal really only scratches the surface of the corruption, racism, and graft that ran the Los Angeles area for the first half of the 20th century. Is this a hard pill to swallow? Absolutely! Should it be glossed over in favor of an escapist story about WWII? No. There’s plenty of inaccurate, fantasy-based literature about WWII. There’s also plenty of solid, fact-based but very, very white literature about WWII. The Maggie Hope books have never been light and happy historical fiction. As the war progresses, the books do indeed get darker as t...
Dragonflykathyrags
I've read all the Maggie Hope series, but The Hollywood Spy is a genuine letdown. I don't want to read about the social history of the times----the plot was thin, everything was negative, and the portrait of CA and Hollywood stressed the seamy side of life there. I was disappointed in the book, and I don't feel it has a place in the series. If anything, each book that continues on in the series seems to get weaker than the previous one. Not a good read for me, that's for sure. Maggie Hope belongs back where the action is during WW2----mucking around in Hollywood is a cheap bore.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter One
Friday, July 9, 1943
"I have a feeling," Maggie Hope murmured, stepping into the golden light, "we're not in London anymore."
Her hair glinted copper in the sun; she was already dressed for the day in a blue-flowered shirtdress and wedge-heeled espadrilles. Maggie looked over the balcony rail, down to the street below. Most of the early morning mist had burned off by now and the air was pure and jasmine-scented, the sky above neon turquoise. A fuzzy bumblebee drifted over a stone planter, settling on a large red rose. Across the street loomed a billboard that read: "UNITED we are strong, UNITED we win" with all the flags of the Allied nations. Next to it stood a poster for the new Walt Disney film Victory Through Air Power. Two klieg lights converged to form the giant V in Victory, illuminating silhouettes of Allied planes with the slogan: There's a thrill in the air.
Maggie surveyed the surrounding neighborhood; she had arrived late the night before and hadn't been able to get a good view. West Hollywood was a mishmash of architectural styles-a Moorish minaret sprouted from a Swiss chalet, while a Tudor mansion overlooked a row of Georgian-style shops. Next door was a Spanish Colonial liquor store, a bar built to look like a log cabin, and a coffee shop with a gigantic coffee cup attached to the roof.
Across Sunset Boulevard, a group of men in black masks caught her eye. They were chasing a blond woman in a white dress and heels down the sidewalk. One pulled out a gun and shot-the woman froze before crumpling to the pavement.
My God, Maggie thought, as blood began to blossom through the fabric.
While she stared in horror, a short man entered her field of vision, waving his arms and yelling, "Cut! Cut!" He was portly, with a handlebar mustache and a megaphone. As he walked to the woman, she sat up and grimaced, pushing hair out of her eyes. He extended a hand to help her up and she took it, now laughing. It's just a movie shoot, Maggie realized. She let her hands unclench from the fists she had made.
Relieved, Maggie took in the vista of Los Angeles's downtown in the distance. The wind stirred the glossy fronds of the palm and pepper trees, and a goldfinch sang from one of the branches. Maggie looked up and squinted as she caught sight of a hawk circling above her, dark against the hot, bright sky.
Maggie raised her arms and stretched, taking in the sunshine. In Los Angeles, in the light and the heat, she felt reborn-like Dorothy in a Technicolor Oz, literally worlds away from her life in gray, dreary war-torn London. Even her memories of England seemed filmed in black-and-white.
As the cast and crew reset the cameras, she went back to her wrought-iron chair in the shade and picked up her freshly ironed copy of the Los Angeles Times: u.s. subs torpedo 14 jap ships, sink 10 shouted the headline. Reds Hold Nazis in Vital Kursk Areas. US Forces Closing in on Munda Base.
She settled in to read. Attempts by the Axis to win quickly, before the United States could muster superior resources, had failed; the Nazis' hopes for a short war shattered. The Allied campaign to win the war, demanding the Axis's unconditional surrender, was now well under way as the British and Americans continued to bomb German cities and sink Nazi ships and submarines. They'd made great headway in the Middle East and Mediterranean through the spring, and an invasion of Sicily seemed imminent.
In the Pacific, the U.S. military was making inroads to the outlying Japanese-controlled islands, slowly but surely inching closer to Tokyo. But while the Allies could now see the possibility, even probability, of eventual victory, there were still no guarantees, except for the continuation of a long, hard, and bloody war.
Same war, but such a different country, Maggie thought as she lifted her eyes to the shimmering horizon. The city seemed as much a mirage in the desert as a city, an idea of a place, suspended between fantasy and reality. There was still an innocence in the United States, an innocence from never having had the mainland of one's country attacked. At least, not yet. As a yellow butterfly flitted by, Maggie tucked one leg covered in tan makeup behind the other, grateful for the awning's shade as the sun rose and grew hotter.
Maggie and Sarah Sanderson, her friend and a ballet dancer, were staying at the Chateau Marmont, a hotel on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Like the castle in Walt Disney's Snow White, the Chateau had slate-gray gables, Gothic archways, and a dominating turret. It perched atop a hill on the northern side of Sunset, one of Los Angeles's busiest and most famous streets.
Their accommodations were courtesy of Linc...
Friday, July 9, 1943
"I have a feeling," Maggie Hope murmured, stepping into the golden light, "we're not in London anymore."
Her hair glinted copper in the sun; she was already dressed for the day in a blue-flowered shirtdress and wedge-heeled espadrilles. Maggie looked over the balcony rail, down to the street below. Most of the early morning mist had burned off by now and the air was pure and jasmine-scented, the sky above neon turquoise. A fuzzy bumblebee drifted over a stone planter, settling on a large red rose. Across the street loomed a billboard that read: "UNITED we are strong, UNITED we win" with all the flags of the Allied nations. Next to it stood a poster for the new Walt Disney film Victory Through Air Power. Two klieg lights converged to form the giant V in Victory, illuminating silhouettes of Allied planes with the slogan: There's a thrill in the air.
Maggie surveyed the surrounding neighborhood; she had arrived late the night before and hadn't been able to get a good view. West Hollywood was a mishmash of architectural styles-a Moorish minaret sprouted from a Swiss chalet, while a Tudor mansion overlooked a row of Georgian-style shops. Next door was a Spanish Colonial liquor store, a bar built to look like a log cabin, and a coffee shop with a gigantic coffee cup attached to the roof.
Across Sunset Boulevard, a group of men in black masks caught her eye. They were chasing a blond woman in a white dress and heels down the sidewalk. One pulled out a gun and shot-the woman froze before crumpling to the pavement.
My God, Maggie thought, as blood began to blossom through the fabric.
While she stared in horror, a short man entered her field of vision, waving his arms and yelling, "Cut! Cut!" He was portly, with a handlebar mustache and a megaphone. As he walked to the woman, she sat up and grimaced, pushing hair out of her eyes. He extended a hand to help her up and she took it, now laughing. It's just a movie shoot, Maggie realized. She let her hands unclench from the fists she had made.
Relieved, Maggie took in the vista of Los Angeles's downtown in the distance. The wind stirred the glossy fronds of the palm and pepper trees, and a goldfinch sang from one of the branches. Maggie looked up and squinted as she caught sight of a hawk circling above her, dark against the hot, bright sky.
Maggie raised her arms and stretched, taking in the sunshine. In Los Angeles, in the light and the heat, she felt reborn-like Dorothy in a Technicolor Oz, literally worlds away from her life in gray, dreary war-torn London. Even her memories of England seemed filmed in black-and-white.
As the cast and crew reset the cameras, she went back to her wrought-iron chair in the shade and picked up her freshly ironed copy of the Los Angeles Times: u.s. subs torpedo 14 jap ships, sink 10 shouted the headline. Reds Hold Nazis in Vital Kursk Areas. US Forces Closing in on Munda Base.
She settled in to read. Attempts by the Axis to win quickly, before the United States could muster superior resources, had failed; the Nazis' hopes for a short war shattered. The Allied campaign to win the war, demanding the Axis's unconditional surrender, was now well under way as the British and Americans continued to bomb German cities and sink Nazi ships and submarines. They'd made great headway in the Middle East and Mediterranean through the spring, and an invasion of Sicily seemed imminent.
In the Pacific, the U.S. military was making inroads to the outlying Japanese-controlled islands, slowly but surely inching closer to Tokyo. But while the Allies could now see the possibility, even probability, of eventual victory, there were still no guarantees, except for the continuation of a long, hard, and bloody war.
Same war, but such a different country, Maggie thought as she lifted her eyes to the shimmering horizon. The city seemed as much a mirage in the desert as a city, an idea of a place, suspended between fantasy and reality. There was still an innocence in the United States, an innocence from never having had the mainland of one's country attacked. At least, not yet. As a yellow butterfly flitted by, Maggie tucked one leg covered in tan makeup behind the other, grateful for the awning's shade as the sun rose and grew hotter.
Maggie and Sarah Sanderson, her friend and a ballet dancer, were staying at the Chateau Marmont, a hotel on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Like the castle in Walt Disney's Snow White, the Chateau had slate-gray gables, Gothic archways, and a dominating turret. It perched atop a hill on the northern side of Sunset, one of Los Angeles's busiest and most famous streets.
Their accommodations were courtesy of Linc...
